The EWTN News portal reports on the annual “Red Mass” held at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, D.C., on October 4, 2026, marking the opening of the Supreme Court term. The liturgical simulation was presided over by the manifest heretic “Cardinal” Robert McElroy, while the homily was delivered by “Archbishop” Timothy Broglio of the Archdiocese for the Military Services. In attendance were Vice President JD Vance, Supreme Court justices, and over 1,000 members of the legal and political establishment. Broglio’s homily invoked the “Holy Spirit” to guide public affairs, explicitly praised the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights as the framework for justice, cited the current antipope Leo XIV (Prevost) on migration, and urged legal professionals to be “architects of hope” grounded in “charity and fraternity.” This spectacle constitutes a public apostasy: the conciliar sect formally ratifies the supremacy of the secular Masonic State over the Kingship of Christ, reducing the Church to a sacralizing agent for naturalistic governance.
The “Red Mass”: A Masonic Ritual Masquerading as Catholic Worship
The very concept of a “Red Mass” for the judiciary is a liturgical fabrication unknown to the Tradition of the Church prior to the modernist infection. It functions as a sacrilegium (sacrilege), simulating the Sanctissimum Sacrificium (Most Holy Sacrifice) to invoke the “Holy Spirit” not for the salvation of souls or the glory of the Triune God, but for the prosperity of the secular legal order. The red vestments, described by the article as representing “tongues of fire symbolizing the presence of the Holy Spirit,” are in reality the livery of the revolutionary spirit—the same spirit that animated the French Revolution and every Masonic uprising since 1789. By processing into the “cathedral” alongside Supreme Court justices and the Vice President, the conciliar “clergy” visually enact the condemned proposition of the Syllabus: “The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (Error 55), while simultaneously living out its practical application: the total subordination of the ecclesiastical to the civil power.
Broglio’s Homily: The Constitution as Idol, Christ the King Dethroned
“Archbishop” Broglio’s homily, as reported, is a manifesto of political modernism. He “talked about the importance of the Constitution, the importance of our laws, and that everybody, even the meekest and lowest of citizens, should have access to justice and how we should. It’s set up that way with our Constitution and Bill of Rights.” Here, the lex fundamentalis of the Masonic republic is enthroned in the place of the Lex Aeterna (Eternal Law) and the Lex Divina (Divine Law). Pius XI, in Quas Primas, teaches with unshakeable authority: “When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states and when authority was derived not from God but from men, the foundations of that authority were destroyed… the main reason why some have the right to command and others have the duty to obey was removed.” Broglio inverts this: he derives the right to command and the duty to obey from the “Constitution and Bill of Rights,” i.e., from the will of the people (vox populi), not the Will of God (voluntas Dei).
Furthermore, Broglio cites the antipope Leo XIV (Prevost)—the current usurper of the See of Peter—as a moral authority: “In his first encyclical, Pope Leo wrote that the way a society treats migrants, refugees, and those forced to move reveals whether its sense of justice is driven by fear or by the spirit of fraternity.” This citation of a manifest heretic and antipope as “Pope” constitutes the sin of schism and heresy formalized. It binds the faithful present to the falsa ecclesia (false church) of the New Advent. The language of “fraternity” (fraternité) is the Masonic triad’s replacement for Christian Caritas (Charity). Christian charity orders men to the Summum Bonum (Highest Good), which is God; Masonic fraternity orders men to the bonum commune temporale (temporal common good) severed from the supernatural end.
The Invalidity of the “Celebration” and the Nullity of the “Clergy”
The article notes McElroy was “principal celebrant” and Broglio “offered the homily.” According to the infallible principle articulated by St. Robert Bellarmine and confirmed by the Defense of Sedevacantism source: “A manifest heretic cannot be Pope or a member of the Church… a non-Christian in no way can be Pope… therefore, a manifest heretic cannot be Pope.” McElroy and Broglio, as public adherents of the Vatican II sect, profess the heresies of religious liberty, ecumenism, and collegiality—condemned by Quanta Cura, the Syllabus, Pascendi, and Quas Primas. They are ipso facto severed from the Mystical Body. Canon 188.4 of the 1917 Code (cited in the Sedevacantism source) declares: “Every office becomes vacant by the mere fact and without any declaration… if the cleric: 4. Publicly defects from the Catholic faith.” They hold no jurisdiction, no orders (the new ordinal of Paul VI being invalid), and no mission. Their “Mass” is not the Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary, but a simulacrum—at best a Protestantized communion service, at worst an act of idolatry rendering worship to the “god of this world” (2 Cor 4:4) under the guise of Catholic forms.
Symptomatic Level: The Conciliar Sect as the “Synagogue of Satan” in Action
The attendance of Vice President Vance and the Justices is not an honor to the Church; it is the State’s inspection of its chaplaincy. The Syllabus condemns the error: “The civil government, even when in the hands of an infidel sovereign, has a right to an indirect negative power over religious affairs” (Error 41). Here, the State does not even need to exert “negative power”; the conciliar sect voluntarily offers its services to legitimize the novus ordo seculorum (new order of the ages). Mark Cummings, a member of the John Carroll Society, inadvertently reveals the naturalistic telos: “It’s inspiring for them [students], and I think it’s a very healthy thing to be able to mix with the Supreme Court justices… I don’t know where else they’d have an opportunity to see so many people who have made it in the profession.” Networking and career advancement—cursus honorum—replace the sanctificatio (sanctification). The “Red Mass” is a career fair for the damned, blessed by hirelings who flee at the sight of the wolf (Jn 10:12).
The increased security due to a “New Jersey man [who] threatened Catholics and Supreme Court justices” highlights the paradox of the conciliar sect: it seeks the protection of the very civil sword it has helped to secularize, having abandoned the gladius spiritualis (spiritual sword) of excommunication and anathema against the enemies of Christ. Pius IX, quoted in the Syllabus source, identified the source of this war: “It is from them [the sects, whether they be called masonic or bear another name] that the synagogue of Satan, which gathers its troops against the Church of Christ, takes its strength.” The “Red Mass” is the synagoga Satanae (synagogue of Satan) at prayer, petitioning the “Great Architect” for the success of the anti-Christian judicial term.
Theological Bankruptcy: “Architects of Hope” vs. Subjects of the King
Broglio’s exhortation to be “architects of hope” is pure Pelagian naturalism. Hope (Spes) is a theological virtue whose object is God and eternal life, not a “more civil society” or “harmony with our neighbors” achieved by legal tweaks. Lamentabili Sane Exitu condemns the modernist error: “The dogmas of faith should be understood according to their practical function, i.e., as binding in action, rather than as principles of belief” (Prop. 26). Broglio reduces the Faith to a social utility. The article notes the “Red Mass” aims to “invoke blessings on justice administrators.” But Quas Primas declares: “Let rulers of states therefore not refuse public veneration and obedience to the reigning Christ… For what we wrote at the beginning of Our Pontificate about the diminishing authority of law and respect for power, the same can be applied to the present times.” There is no veneration of Christ the King here, only the veneration of the State’s judicial priesthood.
The silence on sin, judgment, hell, the Social Kingship of Christ, the necessity of the Catholic Church for salvation (Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus), and the rights of God is the argumentum ex silentio (argument from silence) that condemns this gathering more eloquently than any word spoken. It is the abominatio desolationis (abomination of desolation) standing in the holy place (Mt 24:15), where the True Mass once was offered, now replaced by a civic ceremony sanctifying the imperium of Antichrist.
Conclusion: Come Out from Among Them
This event is not a Catholic act; it is the liturgical signature of the Great Apostasy. The “Cardinal,” the “Archbishop,” the “Vice President,” the “Justices”—all unite in a conspiratio (conspiracy) against the Crown Rights of Christ the King. The faithful Catholic, adhering to the integrum fidei depositum (integral deposit of faith) of pre-1958 Tradition, must recognize this for what it is: idolatry, sacrilege, and high treason against the Divine Majesty. “Wherefore, come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing” (2 Cor 6:17). The true Church of Christ endures not in the marble halls of the “Cathedral of St. Matthew” occupied by the sect, but in the catacombs where the Sanctissimum Sacrificium is offered una cum the true Successor of Peter (whoever he may be in the hiddenness of the vacancy) or at least pro papa (for the Pope), awaiting the restoration of all things in Christ (Instaurare omnia in Christo).
Source:
Red Mass marks opening of Supreme Court term in Washington (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 05.10.2026